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african dream collection. sorry, hi to do that to you. aaron writes, measuring myself for usps gear. can't wait to get some. >> that's kind. america appreciates your patriotism. no more saturday deliveries, cliff claven would be proud. "morning joe" begins now. did you see the pictures of president obama playing golf with tiger woods this weekend? neither did we. >> the media covering the president was shut out. the press corps complained. >> folks, there are a lot of holes in the story, specifically 18 of them. but i believe america deserves to know, who drove the cart? who rode shotgun? did the president hit from the ladies' tee? did he replace his divots? or did he send susan rice to cover them up? but folks, oh, yeah, yeah, you're just as upset as i am, i can tell.

>> good morning, it's wednesday, february the 20th. with us on set here in new york city, msnbc contributor mike barnic barnicle, economic analyst steve rattner, former policy adviser to the bush administration, dan senor, "fortune's" assistant managing editor, leigh gallagher and editorial writer for "the washington post," msnbc contributor jonathan capehart. morning, everybody. >> morning. >> good morning. >> morning. >> joe and mika have the morning off. have we heard enough yet about the fight between the press and the white house over tiger woods? >> oh, stop it. just please, stop it. >> mike, as a grizzled veteran journalist, what's your view? >> just stop it. it makes us out to be spoiled, pampered, you know, people. just stop it. you know? he played golf for two days. they

press complaining about access to the president, and they have this squabble. it happens every couple years. nobody pays attention to it except the press. it's time to move on. >> jonathan capehart, isn't this, though, about a bigger question? it's not just about seeing tiger woods for the press, it's about not getting as much access to the president taz would like over the course of four years? >> yeah. i mean, the white house press corps is especially sensitive. they sit in those little rooms there in the west wing, hoping to get a sight of the president, hoping to get a word with the president. something. and when they travel with him and when they don't get that access, they are especially sensitive. but you know, i have to agree with mike on this. they're with him 24/7. they knew exactly where he was.

so they didn't get to see him. it's not like, you know, he was hiding or anything. he just wasn't in sight. i'm on team barnicle with this one. >> wow. stepping out. >> to me, an outrage was, for instance, steve kroft's "60 minutes" interview where he had the president and secretary clinton. it was the biggest softball interview on the planet. they didn't ask any questions about benghazi. it was in the news that week. a whole range of issues. it was all sweetness and light. the president on the one hand when they do get this access, it's like softball city. and when they don't get the access, like on the golf course, it's where we're being shut out. it's the most opaque administration in history. so it's a little bit of much to do about nothing, i think. >> it's harder to be a journalist these days. it really is. in the era of social media with not just the white house and the president but corporations. everyone is going direct to the readership themselves. so i think that's just adding to the frustration here. >> jay carney answered some of these questions yesterday at the

podium in the briefing room, too. he laid out all the interviews they've given and the access the white house feels it has given. >> there's no question that if you go back to when mr. barnicle and i were journalists many decades ago, it was a completely different arrangement. partly because the press corps was so much smaller that you could get closer to the president. you could get closer to what was going on. today they just have to keep their distance. >> and we are a nation of 330 newspaper columnists, so to speak. everybody has access. everybody has a blog. >> tweet. >> yeah. terrific tweet yesterday, willie. >> thanks, buddy. an old ink-stained journalist sitting next to him. we'll bring him into the new century soon enough. >> i like the facebook. >> the google. >> absolutely. so we're going to talk a little bit about this news overseas. this oscar pistorius story keeps getting more strange. he's back in a south african court this morning as prosecutors lay out their case in the alleged murder of his girlfriend. prosecutors revealed that witnesses heard screaming and

fighting coming from the house for about an hour before the shooting. police say a key piece of forensic evidence will be the angle from which the bullets were fired at miss steenkamp. prosecutors say pistorius put on his prosthetic legs and walked about 20 feet before shooting and killing reason that steenkamp who was locked in his bathroom. pistorius said he was not wearing his prosthetic legs at the time. investigators say it looks like the bullets were fired the aa downward angle, putting that part of the track star's story in some question. pistorius who sobbed in court on tuesday says he thought an intruder managed to get into the house, and they had no intention to keel steenkamp who he says died in his arms. his defense team is asking for bail so pistorius can avoid what's been described as the brutal conditions of the south african prison where he's being held. there's also a report this morning from the prosecutor that there was testosterone and needles found in pistorius's

bedroom. this all starts to come together. and you try to make sense of what exactly happened. pistorius came out with a long story yesterday inside the courtroom, laid out in some detail what he says happened. he said he got up to close a window, to close a door on his balcony, noticed that there was somebody in the bathroom. he said he didn't look first to see that his girlfriend, reeva steenkamp, was not in bed. fired a couple shots at the door and then only afterward realized that she was not in the bed and that he perhaps had killed his girlfriend. so the story gets more strange. >> i don't know whether it's -- the judicial system over there, i'm not sure whether it's going to be trial by jury. i think i read somewhere where it's just a trial by judge. >> not by jury, just by judge. >> i would think just on the face of it, given that there were just two of them there, proving premeditation's going to be a pretty tough hurdle. >> but i mean, the forensics may bear out information that will

be helpful. >> absolutely. >> i mean, there's no doubt it's completely -- the story's completely muddy. i mean, we hear one thing, and then this is a completely different narrative that is quite a detailed narrative. including she died in his arms. >> she can't say. so they'll have to try to figure out where the truth lies. and i think it's going to be hard. >> jonathan? >> yeah. what about the bloody cricket bat? was that an erroneous report? >> no, there was a cricket bat found inside. i can't remember what he said -- >> to break down the door once he thought she was in there. >> right, he said he use it had to bash down the door because the door was locked. he said he use it had to try to get to her and help her, he says. he's in court again this morning. and we keep learning more about it. we'll see where this goes. there's another story we wanted to jump on because we've got people here who can help us through it. just days after infiltrating computers at facebook, it appears sophisticated hackers have breached another high-profile target. apple confirmed yesterday a small number of employee computers were infected by the

same malicious software that was used last week against facebook. nbc's chief foreign correspondent, andrea mitchell, reports on a looming threat that may have ties to the chinese military. >> reporter: a seven-year internet hunt zeroed in on one neighborhood in shanghai and finally this 12-story building. the source of thousands of cyber attacks against 141 u.s. companies spanning 20 industries. whose building is it? according to a new report confirmed by u.s. intelligence, it's the headquarters of unit 61398. >> i think it was time to let the world know, it's actually not just from china, it's the chinese government sanctioning these attacks. >> reporter: among the targets, america's very infrastructure. >> now our enemies are sabotaging our power grid, our financial institutions, our air traffic control systems. >> reporter: other targets of chinese hackers familiar brand names like coca-cola, facebook, "the new york times," on "wash

post" and "wall street journal." and only today, apple. the hackers have user names like ugly gorilla and dota. according to this instructional video from mandiant. >> here we see dota logging into one of his operational e-mail accounts. he's used it for spear phishing and generating additional accounts. >> reporter: what is it? how hackers campaign access into a network by sending deceptive e-mails tricking users into clicking on a malicious link to a phony website. once the victims provide passwords, pnc.i.n. numbers, they're in. sometimes for years with no one noticing. >> when these companies are engaging in business with china, they're going up against a full panoply of resources of the chinese government. >> reporter: the president has himself complained about china's cyber attacks, and officials say got nowhere. but the u.s. uses cyber war to sabotage iran's nuclear program.

what do you say to people who say, wait a second. the u.s. does this, too? >> our government's not going to hack for the benefit of the private sector. they'll hack for the benefit of american people's security. >> that was andrea mitchell reporting for us. leigh, i'll go to you on this. how widespread is this? we know that the united states government has approached the chinese government about this. the chinese government denies it, of course. how big a problem is this? >> well, i think it's huge. i think this mandiant report, by the way, it's a good time to be in the business they're in. college graduates get into anti-cybersecurity consulting because this is huge. it's going to get bigger. this is one of the biggest threats against business right now. if you look at the companies, a couple months ago we saw "the new york times" got infiltrated, apple, facebook. this is, you know, the guts of our innovation, you know, innovative capabilities here. i mean, ceos are freaking out about this. >> what are they typically going after? what's a chinese government hacker looking for when he goes

into apple, for example? >> it can be anything. secrets to how the iphone is made. it can be communications. it can be anything. that's the scary thing. >> denial of service. >> simply to disrupt it. >> exactly. or to interfere with the communication with consumers. >> i think you have to separate some of the hacking like "the new york times," which is the chip knees would say, in effect, was their national security, trying to find out what these "times" reporters were trying to find out. hacking apple which to me makes absolutely no sense for the chinese. maybe they're going to steal a trade secret or two. but they don't want to lose these companies as business partners. >> it's the worst time for this to be happening. >> that's the structural difference versus the cold war. the difference was american companies weren't trying to access, by and large, soviet markets at the time. so we knew we had an adversary. we were each trying to do things to one another. this situation's unique because we have this adversarial relationship on the one hand.

on the other hand, companies like apple and facebook and others are every day trying to figure out their china strategy. they're trying to penetrate the chinese market. and yet now they have to worry about cyber terrorism from this market's government. >> so what do we do about it? what's the defense? do we have defenses in place to stop this? it seems incredibly widespread. >> the president has said he's going to sign some executive orders to increase cooperation internationally against this threat. obviously step up -- i hope he'll step up and sequestration doesn't shut down the government, step up efforts to block this kind of thing. i think for a company it you get to the point where you simply feel you can't function because you're in jeopardy, you're going to pull back, and that's bad for both sides of the equation. >> i think this is a high, high priority right now for the intelligence community. i hear about this a lot. >> you keep hearing anecdotally from businesspeople, when they go to china, do business in china, they don't use their own cell phones. they don't bring their own laptops. >> i have been there.

and that context, and yeah, you do feel like somebody is watching you at every moment. now, that may be complete paranoia, but that is how you peel when you go to china as a businessman. >> you do that, too, barnicle, use a disposable phone? >> i do it here. >> he doesn't use a cell phone or device here. his transcends international sovereign boundaries. >> i have a tablet that i write on. >> only uses the burn phone. immigration, after reports indicated frustration from republican leaders concerning president obama's lack of outreach, generally the president took the rare step tuesday of extending himself to key republican senators. the president called john mccain, lindsey graham and marco rubio who just last weekend called the president's plan, quote, half-baked and seriously flawed. the president told those senators he shares their commitment to overhauling u.s. policy. after the call, senator rubio's office put out a statement that reads, in part, "the senator told the president he feels good about the ongoing negotiations in the senate, and is hopeful

the final product is something that can pass the senate with strong bipartisan support." senator mccain spent the day in town halls in arizona. the senator encountered crowds who made their anger known about the state of immigration in america and particularly in arizona. >> why didn't the army go down there and stop them? because the only thing that stops them, i'm afraid to say, and it's too damn bad, but is a gun. that's all that will stop them. >> the border is 2,000 miles long, sir. i don't know how many troops and army people you think would have been required. i don't know how many you think would be required, but i'll give you expert information that shows you that probably maybe you're talking about 2 million soldiers. you want to round up 11 million people and send them back to their country? you're not going to do that. they're not going to do that. they are not going to do that, though. they're people who have been here illegally for 50 years or 40 years. then telling them to become

guest workers? no, you can't do that. why can't you do that? because we're a judeo-christian principled nation. >> you're a senator with the federal government, and you're doing nothing about it. you said build a dang fence. where's the fence? >> in case you missed it, i showed you -- >> that's not a fence! >> it's not a fence? it's a banana, a banana with about $600 million worth of appropriations we have. >> there were two of those town halls yesterday for senator mccain, jonathan capehart. he said there are 11 people living here illegally. we simply don't have enough buses to deport them. and he got a lot of pushback on that. >> i mean, who was that man? we haven't seen that john mccain in a very long time. someone who's willing to speak truth and push back against people who are spouting some things that are, you know, either intemperate or wrong or wrong-headed. you know, it's interesting that, you know, the immigration debate

here in washington with, you know, mccain -- senator mccain and senator lindsey graham and senator marco rubio all trying to hash these things out. but you know, mccain gets there at a town hall meeting and sees -- i mean, we all know how difficult this issue is going to be. but then senator mccain is confronted by the fact that there are people out there in his own district and probably across the country who think that maybe what's being negotiated here isn't -- doesn't come anywhere close to what needs to be done. >> dan, senator mccain's confrontations at the town hall notwithstanding, what's the likely outcome on immigration? the president has said it's a priority. rubio has put out a separate plan. where's the middle? >> to me what was interesting is not what mccain said. it's this audience. that is a window into a town hall meeting that almost every republican in this country faces over presidents' day weekend. particularly if they're from a conservative state. >> not just arizona. >> not just arizona.

any conservative district in country, republican primary voters and activists are saying things like that to their members. these members like rubio and mccain and graham are sticking their necks out on this issue. and what is frustrating for them which i think i saw expressed in some of the things rubio said over the last couple days, what paul ryan has said in the last couple days, they want to feel like they have a partner with the white house working on this issue. and if you look at the president's speech in las vegas on immigration a few weeks ago for which these republican senators got no warning. even the democratic senators got no warning. or the bill that was leaked over the weekend, no warning. republicans are saying, are we partners here? are we working together? because right now this is not a collaboration. >> correct me if i'm wrong, i don't think the intensity in paul ryan's district is going to be nearly what it was there in arizona. i don't think there were people in wisconsin saying bus them all out. >> i think you're right. i'm just saying there's a culture, there's a mood within conservative republican circles that activists who show up at many of these town hall meetings

across the country, particularly in conservative districts, who are saying maybe something not as extreme but some version, there is resistance to real reform. guys reilike rubio are sticking their necks off and getting on talk show radio and grass-roots efforts about what we need to do something. and they are feeling a little exposed on both sides. they're exposed on the right. the fact that rubio, the first time you heard from president obama, the first time on immigration reform, was yesterday. everyone knows that rubio has been part of this gang of eight for weeks, that he's indispensable. he's essential to republicans being on board. >> let's put aside the frictions and name calling between the republicans and the white house. this is a tough issue, right? this is a tough issue. and even the gang eight which came up with its plan, even if the white house had done nothing, said nothing, the plan of the gang of eight had a long way to go from here to there because the idea that you're going to have border security before you're going to deal with these undocumenteds, you know,

you can deal -- you can say one sentence about that, but then you they'd three more paragraphs explaining how that works. and that's where this all breaks down in terms -- >> and the guest worker program. >> and the guest worker program. but the devil is in the details here. and just because the gang of eight announced this plan, it has a long way to go. and i don't think it's the white house he's fault completely at least that things have gotten a little bit off track because we're getting into the issues now. we're getting into the specifics, and it's getting harder. >> that's fair. what you have with the gang of eight, people like rubio and people like chuck schumer who are saying, give us some space. white house. give us some space to work on this bill. and the white house is not -- it's the worst of both worlds. not only are they not giving them space, they're meddling. they're leaking stuff over the weekend. >> but when the white house doesn't do anything, people say the white house is on the sidelines. >> i think if they want to be constructive, they should be calling these senators and saying what can we do to give you the space you need to construct a bill? and they are not doing that. again, the fact that rubio heard from the president for the first time yesterday on this issue,

given how long he's been working on it, sends a message to a lot of republicans that the white house are looking for a political issue. >> i thought you didn't want the white house to be calling anybody, but okay. >> jonathan, we get past -- >> calling them and saying how can we help? how can we give you the space you need? >> john, when you get past the hurt feelings and you get to the policy, where do we end up on this? if they actually do get in a room and they get the space they need, what's the policy at the end of the day they can agree on? >> it sounds as though from the leaked proposal from the white house and what the gang of eight is working on, they're not that far -- they're not that far apart. and i want to push back on something dan just said. it makes it sound like the white house hasn't been engaged with anybody from any staff among those senators. and the white house yesterday said that while maybe the president probably called those senators for the first time, the staffs, at the staff level, they've been talking. so i don't want to leave the impression out there -- >> barely. barely staff content.

>> that the white house is totally hands off. i subscribe to the viewpoint that gene robinson had in his column yesterday that, you know, this leak of the white house plan probably actually made it a little easier for the gang of eight to get a deal done because it gives -- it gives the republicans something to push back on the white house against and for those folks at those town hall meetings, gives those senators an opportunity to say hey, look. the white house proposed this. we've got this. and this is our plan. and we're going to go for it. >> all right. still ahead this morning on "morning joe," msnbc political analyst richard wolffe joins us here on set. also nbc's chief white house correspondent, mr. chuck todd. and later, star of the hit tv series "unnecessary roughness," me krchlc -- mehcad brooks. up next, a brazen diamond

heist in brussels. first, bill karins with a look at the forecast. >> major winter storm heading for the middle of the country. then it looks like another storm possible for new england this weekend. that would be three weekends in a row. first things first, we are watching the big storm. the one that we're going to be talking about kicking through california into arizona. that is on the move. it will head into the middle of the country today. it will be at its peak intensity thursday. then it kind of weakens and dies off. then it will redevelop, a piece of it, off the east coast this upcoming weekend. so as far as the specifics go, in the midwest, we are plenty cold enough. look at 13 in kansas city. we're setting the stage for very significant snows. kansas, iowa, northern missouri and even portions of northern oklahoma, already on the map, rain in green. the white is the snow breaking out just north of oklahoma city. up into kansas. so it will be a little treacherous this morning on i-35. this is how it breaks down. this is tomorrow morning in the midwest. snow, widespread, full-blown snowstorm for kansas, nebraska,

pushing into missouri and iowa. it looks like an ice storm for northern arkansas. how much snow are we talking about? this isn't a foot or two. this is mostly 6 to 12 inches over a large area of kansas, northern missouri. and for st. louis, a messy winter mix for you. chicago, it looks like a couple inches as we go through thursday night. so today's forecast, today's kind of the calm before the storm. east coast, no problems at all. all eyes are on the midwest in the next 48 hours. then we'll focus on possibly another snowstorm for new england this upcoming weekend. amazing. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. revolutionizing an industry can be a tough act to follow,

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restaurant after a gas explosion there injured more than a dozen people yesterday. the blast blew out windows. at least half a block away as flames lit up the sky. the city manager said the explosion may have been caused by a contractor doing some underground work. so far no reports that anyone was killed, but about a dozen or so injuries. in "the boston globe," new data from the cdc show more than 38,000 people lost their lives in 2010 because of prescription drugs. in a majority of cases, the deaths were accidental and involved painkillers like oxycontin and vicodin. it marks the 11th straight year overdose deaths rose in the united states. trouble in atlantic city for the $2.4 billion revel resort which couldn't quite live up to the hype of its debut last year. management has announced they intend to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy next month. the a.p. calls it a voluntary move to deal with nearly $1 billion of debt. that place just opened last year. "detroit news," sad story.

a state review in michigan finds detroit is in a dire fiscal state, requiring governor rick snider to intervene. the report suggests detroit is in need of significant spending cuts and also faces $14.9 billion in unfunded pension and employee retirement funds. state treasurer andy dylan has ruled out bankruptcy. >> steve, translate that for us. what does that mean for the city of detroit? >> well, this has been coming for a while. detroit is obviously shrinking. the mayor there has done a heroic job of trying to get this thing to come together. but when you lose so much of your population and tax base, you can't get the numbers to work. and they're literally suffocateding under a mountain of debt. looks like the state will have to come in and solve their problems. >> many municipalities are feeling the same thing. detroit is a model of how they've done there. >> what does detroit look ten years from now? how do they come out of this? >> they should simply shrink,

take whole blocks and turn them into park land or farmland and just downsize, right-size, whatever you want to call it. they'll need help from the state because they don't have enough of a tax base. >> will there ever be pressure for federal intervention of some sort? >> i don't think there has been yet in these municipalities because they've been able to solve their problems on their own. if you saw, for example, illinois got to a place where new york city got in the '70s, then you'll have that same kind of pressure, for sure. >> it's amazing given the role that city has played in this country. >> i know. it used to be the fourth largest city. >> yeah. >> not long ago. a half century ago. >> "the wall street journal," a team of eight men armed with machine guns successfully raided a swiss-bound plane at an airport in brussels, stealing at least $50 million worth of uncut diamonds. the gang gained access to the tarmac through a hole in a perimeter fence and appeared to have knowledge of the airport, suggesting they had a little inside help. the entire heist, at least $50 million worth, took only three minutes. >> that is a professional job.

"washington post" facing billion-dollar deficits. the u.s. postal service has unveiled plans to launch a new clothing line. >> what? >> the rain, heat and snow brand will feature cutting-edge technology including wearable electronics all with the goal of being sold in, quote, premier department and specialty stores. this is mind boggling. we want you to know here at "morning joe" we think the trailer for this movie would make a fitting promotional video for the post office clothing line. ♪ >> i used to be a postman, on every street in america, they wore uniforms and hats just like this one. getting a letter made you feel like you were part of something bigger than yourself. i don't think we ever really

understood what they meant to us until they were gone. >> the poor post office. what was jon stewart's business model for the post office? >> jon stewart, the day after they announced they were giving up saturday delivery, he was making fun of their business model. someone comes to you. i need this letter to get to hawaii in two days, in his new york accent. you got a quarter? give me a quarter, i'll do it. that can't work. that can't work. i love that that was 2013 and that was the vision of what this post-apocalyptic world. >> and here we are. joining us now with a look at the "politico playbook," the editor in chief, mr. john harris. >> hello, willie. good morning. >> good to see you. you guys are reporting about the koch brothers looking to do a little rebooting of their efforts to influence the political system starting with a shake-up at the top of their group americans for prosperity. what does it mean? >> absolutely, this is a story

by ken vogel who's got a better read on the koch brothers political organization. as you know, they're the financial engine of the conservative movement. what they've done after the election, obviously a really disappointing election for conservatives, essentially they've taken a deep breath. they're responding as businessmen. the koch brothers are both ideologues and billionaires. you don't get to be billionaires without being a good businessman. and they're responding as businessmen to this crisis. they've ordered an audit of their entire political performance and they've shaken up the organization at the top. the coo of americans for prosperity, they've parted ways with her. and essentially they're hitting pause on a number of their operations to see what worked, what didn't work. what ken makes clear is one they're they're not going to do is retreat. they're still going to be heavily involved in politics, but they're taking a hard look at precisely how to be involved and how to be more effective than they were in 2012. >> john, these audits are taking place across washington, crossroads, karl rove's group, is doing the same thing. what will they do differently this time around after some of

the failures of 2012? >> both groups are fascinated by the success of president obama's re-election and in general the superior effort that democrats have had in identifying voters and mobilizing those voters to turn out. so that's a similarity. where they're in conflict is the root cause. karl rove's groups think the problem, they had too many unelectable candidates, too many extreme canned dates, too many fringe candidates. the koch brothers believe the success of the republican party and the conservative movement really is coming from the grass roots, not the washington establishment. so we're going to see these two financial engines of the republican party really at otdo with each other over the next couple years. >> john, it's dan senor. >> hey, dan. >> how much is the problem that one of the challenges facing the republican party is the ability to organize on the ground, technologically but also knocking on doors. the party because of the new campaign finance limits doesn't have the resources to do that

well. and these outside groups, it's hard for someone to knock on the door of someone's home and say i'm for americans with prosperity, i want to get you involved. so it's hard for these independent groups to take over that responsibility where there was such a big gap in this election between republicans and democrats. >> well, i think that's exactly right, dan. the only thing i would say, and you'll remember this as well, is that this advantage, this technological and mobilization advantage, swings back and forth between the parties. i remember after the 2004 election, i think i might have written this myself, about the big advantage that rove's re-election effort for president bush was going to give to republicans for potentially a decade or a generation. turned out to be total b.s. it didn't even last two years. so republicans certainly have the ability to get back in the game. but you're quite right, they're far behind in the game. and the weakness of the institutional republican party, the real republican party, not these outside groups, is a key cause of that. >> as you say, john, probably taking some lessons from the obama for president campaign in

2012. >> absolutely. >> john harris with a look inside the "playbook." thanks so much. coming up, tiger woods opens up about his power pairing with president obama. the world's number two golfer breaks down the president's game. that's next in sports. mine was earned in djibouti, africa, 2004. the battle of bataan, 1942. [ all ] fort benning, georgia, in 1999. [ male announcer ] usaa auto insurance

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welcome back to "morning joe." 6:39 here in new york city. as you know, tiger woods played golf with president obama down in florida over the weekend. and yesterday as he prepared for his tournament this week, tiger woods in a press conference, evaluated the skills of president obama. >> playing with mr. president was pretty cool. he's just a wonderful person to be around. we won. he hit the ball well and got an amazing touch. he can certainly chip and putt. if he ever spent, after these four years, if he spends more time playing the game of golf, i'm sure he can get to where he's a pretty good stick. >> so he can chip and putt. i guess that means he's terrible off the tee. >> gracious guy. he's always been a gracious guy. >> amazing. a little college hoops. number four michigan state. this was a great game. hosting top ranked indiana.

first half, two-handed jam off the follow-up. victor oladipo is an athletic freak. throws it off the back of the defender. 27-22, indiana. jump to the final minute. hoosiers down one. indiana layup goes off the rim, but oladipo is there to tip it in. hoosiers take the lead for good right there with under a minute to play. 72-68. that's their first win at michigan state since february of 1991. >> i was surprised at the number of airballs michigan threw up. >> airballs? >> yeah. complete misses. >> i didn't realize that. all i know is the big ten is crazy. >> did you watch? >> i did but not attentively, apparently. wisconsin, illinois is playing well. the big ten is crazy. that tournament's going to be great. nba action, the brooklyn nets trailing the bucks by three with six seconds left. joe johnson gets free, buries a long triple. that sent the game to overtime. that was with one second left.

tied it at 105-105. five seconds left. johnson again. no. at the buzzer. joe johnson sends it to o.t. and then wins the game there. 113-111. brooklyn owns the number four seed in the east. as we sit here today. coming up next, alan simpson, the co-chair of the president's 2010 deficit reduction panel, offers a little tough love, pitching his new plan to get the country's fiscal house in order. >> i want to say to people, before you, you know, begin to drool at the mouth and go crazy and scratch our eyeballs out, read the damn report. use your bean instead of listening to crap all day long from the right and the left. >> use your bean. more from simpson. plus steve rattner has new charts on income inequality when "morning joe" comes right back. i'm jennifer hudson.

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he will have a failed presidency unless he deals honestly with the entitlements programs without cutting, you know, the poor and the wretched and all the rest and all this stuff and getting solvency for social security, then the scorecard in years to come was he failed. >> that was alan simpson, of course, who along with erskine bowles rolled out a new proposal to reduce the deficit by $2.4 trillion over a decade. it would save $600 billion through changes to health care programs and another $600 billion from tax reform. $1.2 trillion would come from cutting discretionary spending. our own economic guru, steve rattner, is here with some more of his charts this morning on income. steve, what are you looking at? >> swiching gears to incomes, let's look at numbers that came

out recently based on tax returns that show some pretty amazing things happening with incomes for both the bottom 99%, the top 1%. some of you may remember that almost exactly a year ago, i showed up here and told you that 93% of all the income gains in 2010 went to the top 1%. and 37% went to the top .01%, which is about 16,000 households. those numbers have now been revised. and in fact, 103% of all the income gains in 2010 went to the top 1%, meaning that the other 99% on an inflation-adjusted basis actually saw their incomes go down. >> wow. >> and then if you put that together across a number of years, what you see with the revisions is that over the 2010 to 2011 period, that should be 2011 at the bottom, 121% of all

the income gains went to the top 1%, meaning, again, the bottom 99% went down. and you can see back over the last 20 years what percent of those income gains went to the top 1%, you can see at 121%. it is almost double what it has been in any other period of recovery. >> leave that up for just a second, t.j., if you would. so is that jump even just from 2009 up to this period from 2010 to current, is that the stock market? why are the gains so pronounced? >> it is a combination of certainly the stock market and just the fact that high-valued ceos and high-paid executives get paid more and have the so-called knowledge economy are able to get more. and then this relentless -- and this is the point, we talk a lot about jobs, we don't talk enough about incomes -- this relentless downward pressure on the average worker competing across the globe, not being able to get wage increases. what's happening with unions.

we're now talking about the minimum wage and so forth. and so what's also interesting, if you look at the 2011 numbers which came out, you see something -- a slightly different pattern, which is the bottom 99% still going down, down minus 1.3%. they lost another $150 on their average income. but to your point, willie, the top has actually went down a little bit in that year as well. 0.6% for the top 1%, 6.7% for the top 1%. nobody is going to take up a collection for these guys. they have $23 million of average income. but this is probably a function of the fact that the stock market did not have a great year in 2011. >> those charts, those two combined charts, that is a prescription for social dynamite. i mean, the fuse is burning. >> and the fuse is burning, and when we sit here a year from now and look at the next set of numbers, the stock market was up 16% last year. you're going to see those top income brackets surge in my opinion. >> the same pressure that's

pressing downward on the middle class is lifting -- >> exactly. >> -- it's lifting the top. >> that's exactly the point. >> what do you do from a government point of view? what's the first thing, if it comes from the government? >> well, the president's trying to do stuff. it's at the margin, the minimum wage, training and so on. what you've got to do over time is readdress the balance. raising the capital gains rate which we raised a little bit, but in my opinion, not enough. i'm not here to redistribute everybody's income, but government can play more of a role in trying to bring the two ends together than what it's doing. >> steve, thanks. tomorrow on "morning joe," democratic political guru james carville will join us. also congressman steny hoyer and actor don cheadle. we'll have more "morning joe" when we come back. ♪ [ male announcer ] were you more interesting in your twenties, or now?

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got some fresh polling out from quinnipiac university. new jersey governor chris christie's approval rating now at 74% in that state. that's the highest the survey has ever recorded for a governor in the state of new jersey. when it comes to a potential matchup in the 2016 presidential race, because why not, hillary clinton gets 49% against chris christie. he gets 45%.

in another potential showdown, governor christie tops new york governor andrew cuomo, 54% to 36%. jonathan capehart down in washington, but those 2016 numbers aside, you just look at 74%. >> yeah. >> in a blueish state for a governor who's taken on some tough fights, that's a remarkable number. >> right. i mean, governor christie is a red governor. you say blueish state. i say in a blue state. and you don't get those numbers by being a hardened ideologue. chris christie has shown that he is more than willing to go after his own party, go after president obama. but it's all, from his perspective, doing what's right for the people of his state. and his state's responding to him positively. >> you know, dan senor, some people don't like his style. he's been accused of being a bully. some republicans don't like how complimently he is from time to time of democrats especially of president obama. but people in his state like what he's doing. >> if you look at what he's

accomplished, he's a reformist governor by conservative standards. he's done the things conservatives like which is take on the teachers unions in a substantive way but also a very public way, as you said. i think with that ratrack recor and getting re-elected by large numbers, i don't think he'll get re-elected in the 60s o 70s, but winning new jersey state, a blueish state, as you said, i think will make him instantly an attractive possibility for republicans headed into 2016. >> how could he say no if he were called upon, if he remains this popular, remains a national figure the way he is now, if he's called upon by his party, wouldn't he have to run? >> i actually -- i'm always skeptical of this idea that someone is called upon. they actually have to decide to go after it. and then when they go after it with gusto and energy, then grass-roots movements follow that. national grass-roots movement don't create a candidacy that a candidate can't resist. so he's going to have to decide if he wants to go for it.

it's a low-risk proposition. one of his concerns about running this past time in 2012 is he had run and lost, it would have made it harder for him to get re-elected in governor in 2013. that's no longer a risk. >> it's creating a lot of pent-up demand. he will go for it with gusto. >> we've also got to see how that personality works. he can't run around telling sh to get a life all the time and necessarily have it translate into a national candidacy. >> i'm not so sure. he would pay to see him stand up in front of that crowd in arizona that mccain was addressing. i would pay to see him do that. >> we'll see. coming up next on "morning joe," president obama reaches out directly to key republicans on immigration, but still a little radio silence between the two sides when it comes to those deep budget cuts, now just over a week away. we'll discuss that with msnbc political analyst richard wolffe. also former chief economist for the imf, simon johnson. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. oh this is lame,

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tire rotation and much more, $29.95 after $10.00 rebate. if you take care of your car your car will take care of you. the guy in the car -- the guy in the car didn't even say anything. i think what we seem to be learning is that russians, in the course of their everyday lives, see so much crazy

[ bleep ], they have become unfazable. for instance, they've grown accustomed to the fact that your average car can be torn apart by your average russian woman. this typical roadside scene, two drivers confront each other with a baseball bat. and yes, that is a hatchet. apparently in russia, it's very common for your morning commute to involve a hatchet dispute or a fighter chopper fly-by or a fighter jet fly-by or, i don't know, tank! how unfazed are russians? even their cows in a mass cow tipping just [ bleep ] get up and are, like, hmm. >> wow! you see a lot of things

commuting in new york. you don't see a lot of migs flying overhead or tanks. >> or cows. >> or cows. welcome back to "morning joe." it's 7:00 here on the east coast. mika and joe are off today. i'm with mike barnicle, dan senor, leigh gallagher, jonathan capehart. joining us, executive editor of the msnbc.com, don't laugh at your own title and msnbc political analyst, richard wolffe. great to see you. >> good morning. >> let's get right to the sequestration which is just over a week away. president obama and congressional republicans, no closer to a deal really to avert next week's automatic spending cuts. both sides spent most of tuesday talking past one another, each accusing the other of failing to act ahead of what could be a damaging blow to the economy. the president highlighted the potential job losses for first responders, some of whom joined him at a white house event. the white house sees trimming spending and raising new revenue as the best path to avert the sequester. >> republicans in congress face

a simple choice. are they willing to compromise to protect vital investments in education, in health care and national security and all the jobs that depend on them, or would they rather put hundreds of thousands of jobs and our entire economy at risk just to protect a few special interest tax loopholes that benefit only the wealthiest americans and biggest corporations? that's the choice. my door is open. i've put tough cuts and reforms on the table. i am willing to work with anybody to get this job done. none of us will get 100% of what we want. but nobody should want these cuts to go through. because the last thing our families can afford right now is pain imposed unnecessarily by partisan recklessness and ideological rigidity here in washington. >> republicans have ruled out any more taxes. they say they just gave them tax hikes. they're betting they'll blame the president for lost funding in federal programs and the

pentagon over ten years, should the sequestration take place. house speaker john boehner said, quote, today the president advanced an argument republicans have been making for a year. his sequester is the wrong way to cut spending. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell insisted "more than three months after the november election, president obama still prefers campaign events to common sense, bipartisan action." and joining us now for more on this from washington, the former chief economist of the international monetary fund and bloomberg view columnist, simon johnson. he's the co-author of "white house burning: our national debt and why it matters to you," now out in paperback. simon, good to see you this morning. >> nice to be with you. >> simon, if you could help us through this over the next week or so, it doesn't look like there's a path to avoiding the sequestration if you listen to the two sides. so how damaging would this be? because we've heard a couple different versions of it that would have immediate impacts, more than 750,000 jobs lost perhaps. others say it won't be that bad. what's your view? >> i think it's going to be bad.

we're going to lose jobs, gdp is going to slow. i don't know if it will push us back into recession. but the effect on lower-income americans including children is really very harsh. given what's already happened with income inequality in this country in the last couple of years, this is nasty stuff. >> simon, can you give us a sense, perhaps, of how quickly these job cuts occur? march 1st happens. sequester starts. are we looking at one fell swoop very quickly, or is it the drip treatment over a period of months? >> it's over a period of months. i'm not sure it's going to feel like a drip, though. i think it's going to be a rolling set of nasty dramas. and remember, we also have the issue of funding the government and the debt ceiling fight coming up again in may. so there's a lot of uncertainty around fiscal policy, around government contracting of all kinds. so it's going to be a sort of rolling snowball effect, i might call it, where it gets bigger and bigger. and by may this may be the only thing we're talking about. >> richard, one could wonder at this point, what was the point

of setting the sequester limit if now we're just figuring out ways to come up with a new deal? this was supposed to be the deal. this was supposed to be the thing that forced action. >> right. >> what was the point of it if we're not going to enforce it? >> that's a very good question. what was the point of it? the point of it was that people had crawled out on a limb, and they needed to come off it somehow. the very people who crawled out on that limb are now saying, how did we ever get here? you made me do it. it is ridiculous. and unfortunately, you know, what's that hillary clinton line that she used to use? the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. just in terms of the politics, and also in terms of the spending and the budget piece of this, this crowd in washington right now is doing the same thing over and over. and what you're going to have, i'm afraid, for republican friends, is that the politics don't work out well. you just fought on the same territory, and it didn't work out. and now you're going to have this rolling series of furlough

letters and news stories saying, people are going to lose their jobs. why haven't they come together? and the history of this doesn't look good in terms of the politics, doesn't look good in terms of the budget. also doesn't look good for people who want to deal with the underlying problems. >> the president did agree with this. this is an agreement he came up with republicans in congress. >> i mean, the absurd it'd, it was your idea, no, it was your idea is a bit much. in terms of the impact on the macroeconomy, i agree with what simon said that the beneficiaries of these individual programs will take a hit. i'm very concerned about it, especially the defense department, you're talking about $50 billion a year immediately, which will be a big blow to the defense budget. and the beneficiaries of these individual programs on the discretionary side. but in terms of the macroeconomic impacts, and we're talking less than a quarter of 1% of gdp. again, i'm not for all of these cuts, but i am saying in terms of the macro impact, i mean, that's comparable to the tax increases that the president was

for over this past year that were passed. so why are the tax increases not going to drain -- be a drain on gdp, but these cuts will be? >> well, i think it's the combination. it's not just the sequestration. it's the other fiscal fights that we've had and that we're going to have. so it's this combination. and uncertainty of this kind is very bad, as you know, for all kinds of business investment and for consumer decisions. that's going to have a knock-on effect on employment. employers have been very reluctant to take people back on since 2008. so we're compounding those problems in a way that i think is unnecessary and unfortunate. >> jonathan capehart's got a question. jonathan? >> simon, you were at the imf? >> yes, he was. >> yeah. so how does the rest of the world look at what's happening here in the united states and how we go from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis not every couple of years but seemingly every quarter, does the rest of the

world think that we have become completely dysfunctional? >> yes, although they've known that for some time now. it's remarkable that the u.s. dollar and u.s. government debt is still the primary safe haven. that's where people put their rainy-day money. and yet at the same time, these are sophisticated people around the world. i'm sure many of them watch your show. they understand fully the kinds of problems that we've created for ourselves. now, if you form -- if we continue down this road and if you bring those two thoughts together, the u.s. dollar is not such a compelling reserve asset. foreigners are not as willing to buy u.s. treasury debt in the future at low interest rates. then we have a much bigger problem coming. and we will have brought that problem on ourselves by behaving in this reckless, irresponsible manner repeatedly over these unnecessary fiscal showdowns. >> simon, a different subject.

you've written about, as you call it, the convergence of george will and sherrod brown on financial regulatory reform, which i agree with. i think there's been an opportunity for some time to sort of occupy wall street meets the tea party. it's sort of a joint populist backlash against the big institutions. what do you see in the current environment we're in right now that actually makes that potential increase for some sort of collaboration between, you know, two typically ideological adversaries? >> well, i don't think we're going to see new legislation. but when i talk to officials, for example, around the fed or the fdic and some other bodies in washington, there is increasing skepticism about the very largest banks, how they behave. too big to manage has increasingly become a mantra. you look at the repeated mistakes, hsbc, jpmorgan chase in the last year or so. so some of the biggest best names on wall street have

demonstrated that they can't manage themselves. citigroup repeatedly. and i would say going forward, absolutely citigroup's going to be the center of many of our problems. when you look at that and you think how little benefit we get from the size and the complexity of the institutions, increasingly people on the right like george will and people on the left like sherrod brown are saying let's walk this back. let's find reasonable ways -- put more equity in the system, let's have more capital behind all balance sheets, and let's limit the size and the risks that some of these mega banks can take. limit the downside damage they can do to the rest of us. >> simon, speaking of risk, how would you say -- where have we come from the financial crisis to now in terms of the level of risk of the largest banks are taking? have they reined it in, or are there still things to be alarmed about, like the huge loss jpmorgan took last year? have we made any progress? >> a little bit of progress has been made. dodd/frank had some steps in the

right direction. certainly bank executives were scared and they're being more careful. when you look at the structure of the issue, the incentives they have, jeremy stein who is a governor of the federal reserve gave a speech a couple weeks ago. he said look at the incentive of big banks managing particularly investments in bank and in derivati derivatives. these problems are still with us and regulation by itself, just say we'll have smarter regulation, that's not going to work. you need a more decisive cap on the damage that these banks can bring to the economy. this is a point that jon huntsman started to make -- did make effectively in the republican primaries last time around. didn't get the broad attraction. george will is picking it up. other people on the right. and the left, sherrod brown, elizabeth warren, are also articulating what i would call populism. i would call it responsible, smart economics as finally confronting a problem that's brought us enormous damage. >> simon, before i let you go, i want to point out in the title of your book, "white house burning: our national debt and

why it matters to you," it's a conversation we've been having a lot around this table, whether or not the debt matters today or sometime down the road in the future, and i think your question or your statement in that title is one that should be answered because i don't think most americans understand in the now, in the here, why debt matters to them. what's the short answer to that question for the average american, why they should be concerned or perhaps not concerned about the government debt? >> well, you should be concerned looking out 20 or 30 years. we bring the debt under control. and in our book, we make some, in our view, middle of the road responsible suggestions for doing that. you shouldn't be panicked. don't do things that damage the economy like, for example, the sequester. that's not what you need in order to regard the debt -- bring the debt under control, regard it as a serious issue, which we do. sequester under these circumstances to be avoided. >> so do you believe, as, say, paul krugman believes, that the time to invest more into the

economy? >> i would continue with the sensible, long-term investment programs that we have in this country. and i think there are some additional needs around infrastructure and certainly investing in children's health and in children's education. i think those are terrific and important prior tos although they're not entirely federal, there's also state and local responsibilities there. i think the main issue, though, is don't damage the economy. don't have these repeated fiscal fights which are not for good reason and are not necessary to get the debt onto a responsible trajectory. we're doing a lot of damage that is unnecessary and should be avoided. and we're particularly damaging some of those vulnerable people in our society. we're going to look back on this episode in a generation with great regret. >> as jonathan says, we seem to have these fiscal fights once a quarter at this point. simon johnson, thanks so much. always good talking to you. >> thank you. >> it's a good point, richard. we're governing by crisis. >> yep. >> i mean, we hop and skip from one to the next.

piecemeal change, patchwork solutions. do we have a system, not just the people, do we have a system capable of tackling big problems like getting the debt under control? >> i actually do think the system is working as it was intended to, right? in other countries, simon was just saying people think that america is totally dysfunctional. in other countries, if the prime minister or a president, if they are the head of the legislature, if they cannot pass that budget, the entire government collapses. our system was set up entirely differently. the budgets have to start in the house. the president doesn't get everything they want on anything. especially the budget. and that is -- that's embedded right at the heart of the way the system was set up. it's designed to be messy. it's designed to stop executives from having power especially over financial matters. the problem here is that everyone, if you step back, everyone's talking about the same problems. it's not as if the president is saying there is no long-term

deficit problem. it's not as if republicans are saying we don't want to have to deal with any of this. so just leave it to someone else. the question is can they overcome their pride? can they overcome the very short-term political calculations that they're making? and i think it's very, very difficult. let's face it with this house republican caucus for their own leadership to figure out what the common ground is among house republicans. and if you cannot negotiate for yourself, how are you going to negotiate with the other side? >> one of the problems, though, simon johnson alluded to, while they haven't done, like, fatal damage to the economy, they have inflicted a series of paper cuts to the economy with their inability to get anything done and to these continuing food fights on an average of every six or eight months. >> but it's the threat of damage. with the fiscal cliff, that was the threat of fatal damage. and this, too, a million job cuts over two year ifs this goes through. it is the threat. and the funny thing is, we did put these mechanisms in on

purpose back when we were doing the debt ceiling debate. and the thinking was oh, we'll put these in, but surely we'll think of rational ways to come to a solution. this will never happen. it happened in december. it's happening now. it's going to happen for the rest of the year with all the other hurdles we've mentioned. >> and the clock is, the president's real shot at getting anything done is in this next year, 2013. because 2014, we're back into election season. the last two years of a second term, rarely anything on domestic policy gets done. that's when presidents try to get big things on foreign policy. you're looking at this year, 2013, we're already deep into it. and it's -- >> it's like asking your kids about their homework. yeah, yeah. the paper's not due until next tuesday. why don't you get a head start? monday night i'll be at it. >> the problem is there's always an election around the bend. you have these tiny windows to get things done. so the question is, can we seize those windows? it doesn't look like we can this year. given the hurdles we have. >> this is the 2014 election right now.

both sides are trying to say we're going to fight 2014 on this one. >> that's the problem. >> the problem is they're already into 2014. >> that's the problem. it's politics on top of politics. it's like leadership takes sometimes not doing public opinion in your con stitd wency wants. it's leading. >> this is depressing. >> before we go, how about a little politics of gun. the white house pushing for new legislation. vice president biden heading to connecticut tomorrow to speak at a conference on gun violence. he'll be just miles away from sandy hook elementary school in newtown, connecticut. yesterday he fielded some questions from parents during an online town hall offering some advice that raised a few eyebrows when it comes to self-defense. >> if you want to protect yourself, get a double-barrel shotgun, have the shells of a 12-gauge shotgun, and i promise you, as i told my wife, we live in an area that's wooded and is somewhat secluded. i said, jill, if there's ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, walk out, put that double-barrelled shotgun and

fire two blasts outside the house. i promise you, whosever coming in -- you don't need an ar-15. it's harder to aim. it's harder to use. and, in fact, you don't need 30 rounds to protect yourself. buy a shotgun. buy a shotgun. >> so the vice president there was making the case -- >> he's right. >> -- of semiautomatic weapons. he doesn't want to take your gun away. he just wants you to have a shotgun and not a semiautomatic weapon. >> there's something about the vice president looking into the camera and saying, buy a shotgun. >> he's absolutely right. if you live in the area he just described, the noise alone of a shotgun is going to scare off any potential intruder. >> it's like having an alarm system sign and not having the alarm system. >> two shotguns he owns. he keeps them locked away in a cabinet in his delaware home. >> i'm so happy they're locked away. from joe biden. >> if someone actually tried to

burglarize his home, i have a feeling the secret service would address the issue before jill biden ran out. >> i don't know. i don't know. >> with a double-barrelled shotgun. >> i can see joe in the tank top and boxers. coming up, bullying in the age of social media. how twitter and facebook can make it feel like a 24/7 affair to a teenage victim. this is an important topic. we're going to get into it with author and senior editor at "slate." we tackle that topic in her new book. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ clears his throat ] [ softly ] she's right behind me isn't she? [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. transit fares! as in the 37 billion transit fares we help collect each year. no? oh, right. you're thinking of the 1.6 million daily customer care interactions xerox handles. or the 900 million health insurance claims we process. so, it's no surprise to you that companies depend on today's xerox

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joining us, the author of "sticks and stones." thanks for being here. >> thanks so much for having me. >> you've got a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old. i've got a 5-year-old and a 3-year-old. i'm not here yet, but i'm dreading all the access people have to them, things i can't control necessarily. how big is the problem? >> it's a real problem.

and bullying has real serious consequences for kids. but it's also important to say we're not having an epidemic or a huge crisis. the weights of bullying haven't really risen over the years. it's more that we are paying more attention to it, which is good. >> is the bullying worse now than it was? is there a way to measure that? >> so it's different. kids used to get beaten up more than they do now. and that was bad for them, but now what happens is that because of all the access to the internet they have and they carry their phones around all the time, the bullying can feel like there's no respite. and it follows them everywhere they're going. >> so how do you get at that? the ease of bullying today, facebook and tweeting and they get their cell phones with them in classes and stuff like that. does that feed -- obviously it makes it easier to bully, but how do you deal with it if you're a school administrator? >> so one thing is parents really need to step up and play a role, right? the schools have to help, but it can't just be on the schools because as you were saying, these are devices, and this

access is happening all the time, at home, too. and so one thing that's important especially when kids are getting their first phones and first venturing into social media is to go with them and say, you know, in the beginning, i'm going to guide you here. i'm not going to just throw you out the door. and help that way. >> isn't another part of the problem, parents also need to ed care their children if their children see someone else getting bullied? in terms of not being a bystander. you can draets problem that way, as well? >> yeah, that is a huge opportunity. studies show that bullying takes place in front of an audience of kids almost all the time. but kids only intervene 20% of the time. and yet when they do, they're able to stop the bullying in half of those cases. so you can see there, there's this real opportunity for the kids who are bystanders to stop passively standing by and step up. and then the question is what do they need? what about their environment helps them do that? >> did you look at -- i'm really curious about this. there's been this shift in parenting trends and a lot of

talk about helicopter parenting and parents who hover and all that stuff. does that have anything to do with this? or maybe not? because as you say, the actual numbers haven't changed over the years. >> i think that the helicopter parenting is the danger there is that people are going too far. you know, kids are never -- you don't want to monitor them all the time. they need some room to grow, some sense of independence. and then the really tricky part especially with social media is figuring out what that means. if kids are on the computer and you can't see at all what they're doing, are they having a chance to grow, or are they getting into trouble? and how do you make the balance there? >> go ahead. >> in addition to being a parent, i'm married to a teacher. so i'm interested, you know, one of the fascinating things is not just how the victim feels. obviously that's terrible and the whole response to it is very difficult. but almost as shocking, maybe even or shocking, is the reaction that i've heard about and seen among the parents of the bully. and i'm interested in the sort of psychology of the bully and the bullying family.

can you talk about what you discovered about that and their problems, their issues, how they deal with it? >> it's certainly true that bullies and in particular what are called bully victims, kids on both sides of the equation, and there is a significant group. those kids tend to have a lot of problems. in terms of their psychological issues, the mental health problems they bring, and often their families are in some ways not functioning in the way they should. they don't necessarily have the right kind of parental supervision. and that can be a real challenge for parents on the other side of the equation because one natural instinct if your kid is having trouble with another kid is to go to these other parents. but if you think those parents might be part of the problem, that isn't necessarily a good idea. >> there's been a lot of reporting in the media about bully side, calling it a phenomenon, kids bullied to death. is it, in fact, a phenomenon? would you use that term? or how pervasive is that? >> i wouldn't use that term. i think that term is actually worrisome because it's too

simplistic. so bullying can be a trigger for suicide and it can contribute, but the notion that it's the primary risk and primary cause is almost always not true. it's really depression that is the real risk factor for kids. and so the problem with the term "bully side" is it puts the focus on the wrong part of the story. and once we kind of use that word, we crowd out all the other complicating factors. >> so give me two or three things that we could do as a society, as a culture to address the problem of bullying in public schools, public schools in the lower grades. >> well, what's really important is to foster a culture in school where kids get rewarded for standing up for other kids instead of for being mean. you know, right now in a lot of schools, and this isn't deliberate, but it comes about just from the environment that kids actually benefit from being aggressive and mean. they become popular that way. they use it as a tool to gain social power. and then the question is how do you break that dynamic in and

one answer is that if you show kids that most other kids in the school actually don't like bullying and don't do it, then you're proving to them, this isn't the normal thing. this isn't what everybody does. so one thing that elementary schools have done is done an internal survey. and then they put up posters that say things like "90% of the kids here don't bully." and then they see the rates go down even further because the other kids see that. it's not normal behavior. >> that's very cool. you talk a little bit about twitter and facebook, what they're doing or not doing to help prevent bullying. i think facebook would say they're doing more than you suggest they're doing. what can we reasonably expect a big company like that to do to monitor all these small interpersonal relationships among a billion users? what should we ask of those companies? >> well, bullying and harassment are against the rules explicitly on facebook which are not the rules on twitter. and facebook is working with psychologists at yale and berkeley to improve responses

when kids complain and encourage kids more to turn to people in their own lives to help them which makes sense. what i criticize facebook for is not doing enough to help schools directly and also facebook has a lot of influence with kids. one question i ask kids when i'm reporting is would you rather be suspended from school or from facebook? and a lot of kids pick school because they've invested tremen z tremendously in their facebook profile. it could helper suede kids not to break the rules. that's pretty powerful. >> how could they do that practically? what would you like to see them do? >> when there are complaints -- and facebook does this, when they see the complaints are valid, they'll kehl kids they broke the rules. they don't really kick kids off completely anymore, because that's too easy to start under another fake name. they call it crippling the user experience temporarily. so they'll say you can't set up a particular kind of group page for a month. and that is something kids really respond to. they don't reoffend.

>> any idea of the number of parents, the percentage of parents who have no idea how facebook works? >> oh, i hope it's not that high because i think it's actually really important for parents to have some clue, right? if your kids are spending a lot of time, you should have some idea. and it's not that hard to figure out the basics how it works. >> yeah, mike. it's not that hard. >> sorry. >> i figured it out. >> good. >> it only took you how long? >> emily, it's a really important dock this day and age. it's called "sticks and stones." congratulations. thanks. >> thanks so. an australian weatherman goes to extremes to file his forecast. this one does not end the way he had hoped. we'll see what bill karins has planned for us when "morning joe" comes right back.

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i want to see how long i can last at 8g. are you ready? >> yep. here we go. picking up speed. here we go. we go right and then we go left. keep squeezing. keep squeezing. >> he's passed out.

cut. we don't want to see. >> all right. >> grant, are you back with me? >> it looked like he blacked out for a second. okay. >> is the guy okay? what happens? how does the story end? that was grant, the weather guy for australia's channel 7, passing out during a stunt for the morning show. bill karins who's passed out every morning for other reasons. >> that's true. good reasons. entertaining reasons. i guess that was pretty entertaining. >> would you go 8g for show biz, for ratings? >> i wouldn't go 1g. any weathercast that starts out, "let's see how long i can last," is not going to be a good one. >> how long was he passed out? do we have any other information? he's fine. i'm told he's fine. >> willie, we've got another storming in the middle of the country. new england could have another storm this weekend. it's turning out to be a

february to remember after kind of a quiet start to this winter. and now everyone's starting to wonder when spring's going to show up. already snowing in many areas north of oklahoma city. northern oklahoma's going to get nailed it looks like, up to wichita and then all of kansas. some spots in kansas could end up between one to two feet of snow. this is how it will look tomorrow morning at this time. big strong storm over the top of amaril amarillo. to the north, the snowstorm from kansas, nebraska, iowa, northern missouri, portions of illinois. even strong thunderstorms down in areas of louisiana and east texas. how much snow? this isn't feet of snow. some areas of kansas could end up 12 plus or so. the big cities like kansas city, tope topeka, manhattan, wichita city, 6 to 12 inches. that's a high-impact event in the midwest. the rest of the east coast, you're fine today. you're actually fine for a couple days here in boston. but the weekend -- this would be the third weekend in a row with nasty weather conditions. we've had two huge snowstorms in a row. the possibility of a third one.

notice the temperatures, though, a little warmer. we could mix in with rain on this one. it may help us out a little bit. our very reliable, european computer model, the one that's nailed the last two weekend snowstorms in new england, is predicting as much as 6 to 12 inches. again, we're still four or five days away from this. these are rough estimates. but it at least shows you the potential is there for another high-impact snow event as we go throughout saturday night and then during the day on sunday. again, this one's a little more questionable because of the temperatures. but i'll update that, of course, as we go throughout the week. you're watching "morning joe." we're brewed by starbucks.

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take thurman. he was a professor. those four hands invented touch-screen technology. or io. a librarialibrarian. she invented the search engine. and most importantly, me. after my radio show got famous, i invented social networking. i've got 5 billion pending friend requests. that's how he rolls. he rips off our technology and sells it to the world. he's got deals with everybody. apple, facebook, them google guys. you think humans could build this stuff? i don't think so. >> that was a scene from the new animated movie "escape from planet earth." here with us now, one of the executive producers, marvin pierk. good to see you. >> morning, willie. >> big business. $21 million at the box office for that movie. were you expecting that kind of success? >> we weren't and we were at the

same time. it exceeded expectations, and we're very happy about the movie. >> tell us for people who haven't seen it yet, a lot of us around the table have kids. it looks very appealing, but it's got an adult appeal as well. >> it does. it's about finfinding an inner . be strong, be wary, it's about finding the hero in yourself. >> who's escaping from planet earth? explain the movie a little bit. >> earth is this very scary place that aliens don't want to go to. and super nova who is a big hero of planet bob has a mission to go to earth. and everyone's saying, don't go. and his brother, gary, who they just had a falling out with, says, listen. you don't want to do this. earth is a very scary place. when he gets there, he sees all these -- finds all these aliens that have been locked up for years doing all this technology for guys like bill gates, facebook, google and stuuch. and agent chancre played by william shatner is there to keep these guys there forever and keep building out this

technology that he can sell. >> you've got a lot of good voices in there, too, shatner, brendan fraser, jessica alba, sarah jessica parker, sofia vergara, george lopez. >> how hard is it to pitch an animation movie and the cost of making an animation movie, give me the -- is it more, or is it less than an ordinary movie? >> typically animation is more. you know, companies like pixar and dreamworks, they make these pictures for 100 million-plus dollars. and harvey weinstein, he has -- he's created this philosophy and this animation company called kaleidoscope which is created to make midtier animation. you see a movie like "escape from planet earth," which costs about $40 million, it's a fraction of what normal animation films cost, but you can see the quality. it's about great stories, great characters, great voices and just building on a great story. and that's what harvey has done. >> so normal human beings might

judge others by what sport team they support, what music they like. in my family, it's your top three animated movies of all time. >> wow. >> so my kids, they keep changing the order, but it would be, you know, right now maybe "despicable me," "monsters versus aliens," seriously underrated, by the way, and "rango." >> no "toy story"? >> no. we're beyond that. your top three. of all time. >> "escape from planet earth." >> well played. >> "cars." >> yes, yes. >> that is a good one. >> and i like "rio." >> okay. >> let me ask you something. you've also worked in reality television. and there's been lots of predictions of when that, you know, game is going to be over. we seem to keep consuming hour and more of it. i may or may not be a fan of "the real housewives of new york." that aside, what's your long-term outlook on that? >> reality tv is -- it's real. and i think you've ever gone to your kitchen sink or window, done some dishes, looked out the

window, saw what your neighbors were doing and you probably paused and said, you know, what are they up to? that's really what reality tv is, putting a camera in someone's living room and you're fascinating. it's very addicting and hard to get away from. >> how hard was it for you to climb the ladder to get to where you are today? >> it was very hard. i started in the music business. and we had what they call the black music division which gave me the opportunity to have a job at a major recording company. so when i got there, without that, i wouldn't have been able to go to and say i love country, i love pop, rock, why not find some artists to do is that? i was thankful they had this division and i was able to grow. because i always wanted to segue into television and film, i had a relationship with queen latifah who i knew from the music business. they said, listen, if you want to make the segue come, work with us, the world is your oyster. do what you want to do. let's just try to do some really

great things. and i went and i worked with them. and then we just started climbing and expanding the company and growing. and i'm very thankful to them for the opportunity that they gave me, which gave me a way to look at the business from two different angles where i felt if you're going to be in the movie business, either you need to be on finance or you need to have a relationship with a really big star. i didn't grow up with brad pitt or george clooney, so i said i need to go out and start raising in capital to be a part of some really great projects. and then another friend of mine, david glasser, who was just leaving a film group, was going over to the weinstein company and said hey, you know, why don't you bring some of your investor relationships here. and so we formed a group and started investing in projects, and we partnered with harvey weinstein and the weinstein company on "escape from planet earth," and that's how it was born. >> and look where you are now, climbing the box office charts. the only downside to get that high, you've got to work with harvey weinstein, our dear friend, harvey. >> i consider harvey a really

dear friend. three years ago my father got really ill. and he jumped in and got very involved with his health and his care. it wasn't about hey, let me know what's going on. he called my father's doctors. he wanted to know updates by the hour. and thank by the grace of god, he got a heart transplant a few years ago. and via through that, harvey then decided, they came to him and said hey, why don't we partner with you. maybe we can do something for like a new facility in newark. and he was a little reluctant in putting his name on it. let's name it harvey and georgina weinstein transplant center and try to build something. great, let's do it. hopefully the transplant facility will go online in newark and it will be a great facility. >> we love harvey. we just like messing with him a little bit, too. >> too bad he doesn't know how to promote his products. >> my gosh, he's relentless, up to the last minute. on tv tonight, tomorrow, "silver linings playbook," best picture.

>> 2013. >> he's going to do it. so good to talk to you. congratulations on the success of the movie. it's "escape from planet earth" in theaters now. go college it out. up next, a real-life heist that could be taken directly from the script of "goodfellas." remember the lufthansa heist? >> jimmy burke. >> 50 million bucks in diamonds now stolen from an airport in brussels. that story next. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. mine was earned in djibouti, africa, 2004.

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good music coming in. i get it. an airport tarmac in brussels now a crime scene after a team of mass gunmen stole $50 million worth of diamonds. the heist went down in a matter of minutes, leaving police off-guard and completely stunned. nbc's keer simns has the story. >> it was brazen. eight men targeting an arpt, staeping with millions in 2k50i78ds without firing a shot, leaving nothing but a burned-out van. >> this was a quick hit and run. >> reporter: the men were in two vehicles, a mercedes and a car. they drove through a hole cut in the security fence, headed straight for a plane -- they

fled back through the fence. it took just three minutes. >> you can only conclude that these people were indeed very well aware of what they were doing, what they were looking for. >> reporter: the jewels are from the capital of the world diamond trade. the heist there ten years ago were the biggest ever. >> how it's possible that eight armed men can have access to the tarmac to a specific plane of which they knew of which it was going to take off a few minutes later and that has diamonds onboard. >> reporter: diamonds like those sold here on london's bond streets are a tempting target for thieves. they're small and easy to carrier waugh. in 2009 two men stole diamonds of $65 million worth. >> reporter: in 1978, the legendary heist at jfk airport.

made famous in the movie goodfell goodfellas. >> and these are the guys that jimmy putting together for what turned out to be the biggest heist in american history. >> just last year a london mall was hit by thooefz on motorcycles. police in belgium will be looking for them in their security videos. >> that was nbc's keer simns reporting. as you point out, richard, it looks like it was not a random act. >> i think it was ben affleck with his new movie. it wasn't a heist at all. >> that's an incredibly story. one other thing on the topic of movies. espn -- i was at a luncheon yesterday, the people who did thirty for thirty, those great documentary movies now doing nine for nine women's stories, great stories for everyone. my sister worked at espn is working on the project, but i was so taken by some of the films that starts this summer.

katarina vitt. >> anna cornakova. let them wear towels. women's shorts writers in the lockerroom. these are not just stories for women. these are great, great stories, the nine for nine series. >> and they bring the thirty thirty protection of story telling. it's going to be awesome. on tomorrow's show we want to tell you, political analyst james carville will join us. still ahead, chuck todd will join the conversation. plus new details in the murder case against oscar pistorius. "morning joe" continues in a moment. the patient, presented with a hairline fracture to the mandible and contusions to the metacarpus. what do you see?

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good morning. welcome back to "morning joe." it's 8:00 here on the east coast, 5:00 a.m. as you wake up out west at the live look at new york city. mike barnicle, dan see for, leigh gallagher, and down in washington, jonathan. we're going to talk about this oscar pistorius story. he's back in a south african court this morning as prosecutors lay out the case in the alleged murder of his girlfriend. prosecutors reveal that

witnesses heard screaming and fighting coming from the house for about an hour before the shooting. police say a key piece of forensic evidence will be the angle from which the bullets were fired at miss steenkamp. prosecutors say pistorius put on his prosthetic legs and walked about 20 feet before shooting and killing steenkamp who was locked in his bathroom. investigates say it looks like the bullets were fired at a downward angle, putting that part of the track star's story in some question. pistorius, who sobbed in court on tuesday, says he thought an intruder managed to get into the house and that he had no intention to kill steenkamp, who he says died in his arms. his defense team is asking for bail so pistorius can avoid what's been described as the brutal conditions of the south african prison where he's being held. there's also a report this morning from the prosecutor that there was testosterone and needles found in pistorius's bedroom. so this all starts to come

together and you try to make sense of what exactly happened. but pistorius came out with a long story yesterday inside the courtroom, laid out in some detail what he says happened. he said he got up to close a window, to close a door on his balcony, noticed that there was somebody in the bathroom. said he didn't look first to see that his girlfriend reeva steenkamp was not in the bed. he fired a couple of shots in the door, then only afterward realized that she was not in the bed and that he had perhaps killed his girlfriend. >> i don't know whether it's a -- the judicial system over there, i'm not sure whether it's going to be trial by jur. i think i read somewhere that it's just a trial by judge. >> not by jury, just by judge. >> on the face of it, given there were just two of them, proving premeditation's going to be a pretty tough hurdle. >> but forensic laid out information that will be

helpful. there's no doubt that's completely -- the story's completely muddy. we hear one thing, and then this is a completely different narrative that is quite a different narrative, including she died in his arms. >> and she can't say, and so they're going to have to figure out where the truth lies, and i think it's going to be hard. >> jonathan? >> what about the bloody contradict bat? was that an erroneous report? >> there was a contradict bat found inside. right. he said he used it to bash down the door because the door was locked. once he realized it was her, he said he used to, to try and get to her. so he's in court again this morning and we keep learning more about it. there's another story we wanted to jump on because we've got some people here who can help us through it. just days after infiltrating computers at facebook, it appears sophisticated hackers have reached another target. apple confirmed yesterday

computers were -- nbc's chief foreign correspondent andrea mitchell reports on a looming threat that may have ties to the chinese military. >> a seven-year internet hunt zeroed in on one neighborhood in shanghai and this building. the source were thousands of cyber attacks against 141 u.s. companies stanning 20 industries. whose building is it? according to a new report, it's the headquarters of unit 61398, the cyber warriors for china's people's liberation army. >> it was time to let the world know. it's not just from china. it's the chinese government sanctioning these attacks. >> reporter: among the targets of china's hackers, america's very infrastructure. >> now our enemies are also seeing the ability to sabotage our financial institutions, our air traffic control systems. >> reporter: other targets of chinese hackers, familiar brand names like coca-cola, "the new

york times," "washington post" and new york journal. according to this instructional video that did the study. >> here we see him logging into one of his operational accounts. generating additional e-mail accounts. >> spear fishing is sending deceptive e-mails, tricking users into clicking on a malicious link to a phoney website. the hackers are able to steal confidential files and route them to shanghai. >> when these companies are engaging in business in china, they are going up against the full resources of the chinese government. >> reporter: the president himself has complained about china's cyber attacks and officials say got nowhere. but the u.s. has used a cyber war to sabotage iran's nuclear

program. >> what do you say, waited a second, the u.s. government does this too? >> our government's going to hack for the benefit of american people's security. >> that was andrea mitchell reporting. how widespread is this? we know the united states government has approached the chinese government about this. the chinese government denies it of course. how big a problem is this? >> i think it's huge. i think the report, which by the way, it's a good time to be in the business that mandiant is in. this is huge. it's going to get bigger. this is one of the biggest threats against business right now. if you look at the companies, a couple months ago, we saw "the new york times" got infiltrated, apple, facebook. this is the guts of our innovati innovati innovative capabilities here. >> what's a chinese hacker looking for when he goes into apple? >> it can be anything.

it can be secrets to how the iphone is made. it can be communications. it can be anything. >> it can be simply to disrupt it. >> exactly, or to interfere with the communication. >> i think you have to separate some of the hacking like "the new york times" which the tines would say it was their national security trying to find out what the reporters are trying to find out. hacking apple to me makes absolutely no sense to me. they don't want to lose these companies as business partners. >> that's the structural difference of this versus the cold war. the cold war there was all sorts of espionage taking place. the difference was america was trying to access soviet markets at the time. we were each trying to do things to one another. this situation's unique because we have this adversarial relationship on the one hand. on the other hand companies like

apple and facebook and others are every day trying to figure out their china strategy. so they're trying to penetrate the chinese market, and yet they have to worry about cyber terrorism from this market's government. >> so what's the defense? do we have defense in place to stop this? >> well, the president has said that he's going to sign some executive orders to increase cooperation internationally against this threat. i hope step up, assuming sequestration doesn't shut down the government, the government's efforts to block this thing. but i think for a company, if you get to the point where you feel you can't function, you're going to pull back and that's bad for both sides of the equation. >> i think this is a high priority for the intelligence community. i hear about this a lot. >> you keep hearing from business people, when they go to china, do business in china, they don't use their own cell phones, they don't bring their own laptops. >> i have been there in that

context, and yeah, you do feel like somebody is watching you at every moment. that may be complete pairnoia with you pa that is how you feel when you go to china. >> you do that here? >> his transcends international sovereign countries. >> immigration after reports indicated frustration from republican leaders concerning president obama's lack of outreach. generally the president took the rare step tuesday of extending himself to key republican senators. the from the called john mccain, licensed graham and marco rubio who just last week called the president's plan half baked and seriously flawed. the president sold those senators he shares their commitment. afterwards, senator rubio's office put out a statement.

he is hopeful that final product -- senator mccain spent the day at town halls in his home state of arizona. congress is in recess, where the senator encountered crowds who made their anger known about the state of immigration in america, and particularly in arizona. >> why didn't the army go down there and stop them? because the only thing that stops them, i'm afraid to say, and it's too damn bad, but is a gun. that's all that will stop them. >> the border is 2,000 miles long, sir. i don't know how many troops and army people you think would have been required. i don't know how many you think would have been required but i'll give you expert information that shows you that probably maybe you're talking about 2 million soldiers. you want to round up 11 million people and send them back to their country? they're not going to do that. they are not going to do that though. there are people who have been here illegally for 50 years or 40 years. am i then telling them to become

guest workers? no, you can't do that. why can't you do that? because we're a judeo christian principled nation. >> you're doing nothing. you said build a dang fence. where's the fence? >> in case you missed it, i showed you. >> that's not a fence. >> it's a banana. >> there were two of those town halls yesterday for senator mccain, jonathan capehart. he said there were 11 people living here illegally, we simply don't have enough buses to deport them. >> who was that man? we haven't seen someone in a very long time, someone who's willing to speak truth against people who are spouting things that are wrong or wrong-headed. it's interesting that the

immigration debate here in washington with senator mccain and senator lindsey graham and senator marco rubio all trying to hash these things out. but mccain gets there at a town hall meeting and sees -- we all know how difficult this issue is going to be, but then senator mccain is confronted by the fact that there are people out there in his own district and probably across the country who think that maybe what's being negotiated here doesn't come anywhere close to what needs to be done. >> dan, senator mccain's confrontations at the town hall notwithstanding, what's the likely outcome here on immigration? the president has said it's a priority. marco rubio has put out a separate plan. where's the middle? >> to me what's interesting is not what mccain said. it's this audience. that is a window into a town hall meeting that almost every republican in this country faced over president's day weekend, particularly in a conservative state. not just arizona. i tell you, any conservative

district in the country, republican voters and activists are saying things like that. what is frustrating for the senators, and i think you saw some of the things senator rubio said in the last couple days and paul ryan, if they want to stick their necks out, they want to feel like they have a partner with the white house on this issue. if you look at the president's speech in las vegas a few weeks ago, they got no warning. republicans are saying, are we partners here? are we working together because right now this is not a collaboration. >> correct me if i'm wrong, i don't think the intensity in paul ryan's district is going to be nearly what it was in arizona. >> sure. >> i don't think in wisconsin. >> no, no, i think you're right. i'm just saying there is a culture, there's a mood within conservative republican circles that people, activists who show up at these town hall meetings,

who are saying maybe something not as extreme, but some version, there is resistance. guys like senator rubio are sticking their necks out and getting on the phone with conservative talk show radio and trying to educate these leaders and grassroots activists. they are feeling a little exposed on both sides. the fact that marco rubio, the first time he heard from president obama, the first time on immigration reform was yesterday. everyone knows that marco rubio has been part of this gang of eight for weeks, that he is indispensable. he is central to republicans getting onboard. >> let's put aside the frictions and name calling in the white house. this is a tough issue. and even the gang of eight which came up with its plan, even if the white house said nothing, the gang of eight had a long way to go from here to there because the idea that you're going to have border security before you deal with these undocumented, you can say one sentence about

that but then you need three more paragraphs explaining how that works. and that's where this all breaks down. >> and the guest where do you worker program. >> and the guest worker program. but the devil is in the details here, but just because the -- we're getting into the issues now. we're getting into the specifics and it's getting harder. >> that's fair, but with the gang of eight you have people like rubio and schumer who are saying give us some space, white house, to work on this bill. and the white house, it's the worst of both worlds. not only are they not giving space, they're meddling. >> okay. but when the white house is not doing, everybody says the white house is on the sidelines. >> i think if they want to be constructive, they should be calling the senators and saying what can we do to give you the space to construct a bill? and they are not doing that. again, the fact that rubio heard from the president for the first time yesterday given how long

he's been working on it sends a message to a lot of republicans that the white house are looking for a political label. >> coming up, the story lines are inspired by real events. we go inside the show "necessary roughness." . first nbc's white house correspondent chuck todd joins us on the set. >> good morning, chuck's bees with three phones in his hands. good morning, everyone. let's deal with this snowstorm we're going to have in the middle of the country and i'll tell you where it's going to end up being by this weekend. first things, it is very cold. we're setting the stage from denver to kansas city. the rainy water almost in oklahoma and texas. it's giving in the cold air to the north. oklahoma's right on the line of the rain and the know and now the snow is broken out in oklahoma city. be careful during your morning

commute. wichita, kansas, you are going to be near the heart of this blizzard. one to two feet possible in areas of central kansas. again, ice storm, northern arkansas, southern missouri. you're going to have to deal with it there. kansas city, somewhere between 6 to 12. significant snowfall eventually will make its way into illinois. chicago, only about 3 inches for you. today's forecast, we're quiet on the east coast. that's going to change by the upcoming weekend. it looks like the third weekend in a row that new england's going to have to deal with a storm. saturday around hartford, connecticut and all of new england, mostly dealing with rain, going to snow saturday night and you could be dealing with heavy, wet snow on sunday. we don't want that, could mean power outages, and of courseth snow banks are already plenty high.

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i always say to people, before you began to drool at the mouth and go crazy and scratch our eyeballs out, read the damn report. use your bean instead of listening to crap all day long from the right and left. >> that was my favorite, alan simpson, guest today on "the

daily rundown." >> they don't even have to wind him up. >> no, they don't. i could listen to him all day long. erskine bowles and alan simpson rolled out a new proposal to reduce the deficit by $2.4 billion over a second. that would sieve $600 billion from tax reform and $1.2 trillion would come from cutting down discretionary spending. joining us now, nbc news correspondent and host of "the daily rundown," and all around good guy, chuck todd. steve rattner is here. >> you're not watching starski and hutch. >> leigh gallagher is still here. >> i guess it's not amazing but in this day and age, given the last four or five years, the idea that the president of the united states calls marco rubio becomes a huge story. a phone conversation. >> and i tell you, it's sort of -- i am a cynic on this one.

this feels, it's important to rubio to create the illusion that there's a huge gap, huge difference when he's fighting the white house, when these immigration plans, there's like a difference of that much. but i get the politics of this. but the sort of kabuki theater that's going on, and the fact that the phone call shows that the white house is willing to participate in the kabuki theater to get it down and vice versa. rubio wants, in a weird way they're both sort of admitting they have to do these theaterics, they understand there's a certain round. of that. >> i agree on the kabuki theater, but i also do worry that as you get into the details on this, it gets harder and harder that what does it mean to

have border security before you do anything about the 11 million illegals, what about the guest workers. and i think you've got these eight guys who are going to have to work harder and harder. >> but this is one of those issues where the republican leadership, look at where they're from in the house. boehner from ohio, but look at the number two and number three. normally cantor and mccarthy would be two guys -- they live in virginia. they're realists on the politics of this issue. this issue will be allowed to go to the house floor without a majority of the republicans. i'm convinced of it. when it's politically within the best interest of the party as a whole, those two guys are going to have boehner's back on this if necessary, and i think they're willing to have a revolt on that issue. >> chuck, couple things. do a compare and contrast with a

really almost identical plan that was put forward by president bush. in that time, the whole plan was derailed by conservative talk radio. >> right. >> and so what's to stop that from happening again? but the other side is, if it actually goes through now, this congress with this president, we've all been saying for years now, this is the most dysfunctional congress ever, these people cannot get anything done. how could a democratic president with a congress that allegedly hates him get even this close to getting this through when president bush with a republican house couldn't do the same? >> and just one number you need to know. 71. that was the percent of -- that obama won. in a weird way that's what had to happen. obama had to clean the clock of the republicans on the hispanic vote. this was a hispanic vote that during the democratic primaries in 2008, obama was struggling.

hillary was the candid. four years later we don't even, that seems like a ridiculous premise, but that was a real premise in 2008. i think the 71, that's what -- big deals happen in washington when there's benefit on both sides. and republicans, the leadership knows it. it's going to happen. >> it's such a contrast with what's happening with the budget agreement. >> but they don't see an upside to raising taxes for them. and they're right, on the politics, they're right. >> they don't need to. >> they're right on the politics and so you get into sequester. >> i know. >> what's going on at the moment -- >> government workers getting laid off, do you think there's unpopular? >> if you're eric cantor, it might be. you're trying to get the other side to take the blame for the sequester. and i think when you get into the actual laying off of people

all over the country, not just in virginia, i think the politics are going to get ugly and i suspect uglier for the republicans than democrats. >> i think there's a danger here -- >> they're not listening right now -- >> i don't know. because think about it. we've had five -- ever since the republicans took over the house, we've had what, five budget crises in some form or another. and what happens? it always gets resolved. not well. none of the cases got resolved well. so the public is going to sit here and say -- and look, the people who are the real victims who are getting laid off. we know how this is going to happen. sequester kicks in march 1st, they come up with some deal by the 27th to get funding in. that's why republicans are so able to push out their chest. of course we'll let the sequester happen because we'll clean it up in two weeks. >> sure. i get that part.

but this would be the first time that we have actually gotten past one of these deadlines and people start to get laid off. i don't know what the time means. people are going to start to get laid off. every local paper is going to have a story about what's happening in their district with the park rangers, whatever. i agree with you completely. congress is going to get back together and say we're going to solve this problem. are they going to solve it by kicking the can down the road with more gimmicks, or are they going to solve it by making some kind of a deal. the grand bargain is so far away. alan simpson can wish and hope, but it's not real. but are they going to deal with this $1.2 trillion in some fundamental way or are they going to kick the can down the road? >> are is the level of cynicism such that the layoffs that you're talking about that will occur, are they going to be things that are quite visible to

the public? is it going to be tsa people so the lines are triple what they are now 234 airports. things like that. is road paving going to just stop. >> no, but it's going to be visible. you're going to have stories in the papers. >> the wild ward on this is if there's a natural disaster, right, during this period of time. that's the wild card with fema or natural disaster where there's real questions of okay, how much money is around, where's it left and how does it work? >> chuck, you say republicans puff up their chests, but they most -- >> their approval rating goes from what, 2% to 12%? >> it's a brutal three weeks. >> it is. >> why would you take that on? you know you're going to get beaten up for the next three weeks. >> because in their own districts, they say this is the only way to force the president

to even think about shrinking the size of government, to even think about cutting spending. and this is where i think we live in these parallel universes. i understand what you're saying about the dayton daily news, but i'm telling you, there's a lot of conservatives who were going to say, government workers laid off, so what? >> i'm reading "the new york times" today, story about the sequester on page 16 and here's an official quoted saying, in speaking of the back and forth between democrats and republicans, we are trouncing them said one senior administration official about the republicans. it's a game. >> the people that i feel sorry for are these -- are the government workers who are going to get the furloughs, who are saying i got to do this, i got to do this. they know that they'll probably eventually get their money back, but how do you plan for that?

how do you plan. you got to pay for maybe your kid's about to go off to a camp in customer camp and you got to write that check now. >> we should all agree, this is the stupidest way to run a railroad. >> it is so stupid. >> i wanted rattner's opinion, is the stock market going to the sky is falling? >> stock market doesn't care anymore. they don't believe washington. they don't scared anymore. sure, let's run up the markets. >> they're looking at the economy and seeing a strong economy. >> and they used to be scared by washington. up next. >> republican's going to be the same think. >> up next, the student loan controversy. business before the bell with brian sullivan. we're going to be right back. none of us would want to be told we can't marry the person we

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phil mickelson, he's california based, and he's had it with taxes. he says he's going to take drastic action because his tax rate is 63%. >> mickelson is going to take drastic action, and in pro golf,

that could mean carrying his own putter. folks, he's got no choice. he makes only $60 million a year. and california's raised his taxes 3%, so mick elback is considering moving out of california or retiring altogether. do you know what happens if phil mickelson isn't here to win those millions of dollars? someone else will. is that suddenly okay? >> phil mickelson, man. go home, phil, please. we are so fortunate today with "business before the bell" because our brian sullivan is ready to give us all the news about everything happening with the economy. but brian, i understand what's on your mind today is very important, college loans. >> it is, mike. and the wall street journal did a great job at going through

every college in the united states, looking at the graduation rates, looking at the loan default rates. we know that college loans are a big problem. we know defaults are a big problem, but the data even surprised me, and as you describe me old, i feel that way and perhaps a little too cynical for my 41 years. but there are colleges that have a higher loan default rate than a graduation rate. there are colleges, mike, that have graduation rates in the single digits and loan default rates in the mid to high double digits. there are many schools out, a lot of them i've never heard of, so you wonder what their real purpose is. i avoided my own school, virginia tech, but alone, virginia tech, i love the school. they called me for a donation. stanford just raised $1 billion

in one year, but you getting these schools where 50% of students are defaulting on loans and they could be $5,000 or $6,000, or they could be $30,000 or $40,000. and my call on this fine program is this, the government needs to look into any school where the default rate is higher than the graduation. go look at them, figure out what their purpose is. >> brian, do you think the banks are to be investigated here and this might be something along the lines, i don't want to be extreme and say a subprime crisis, but do you think it might be that egregious? >> i don't know if it's the banks, but these programs are government-funded and government-sponsored programs as well, and it's pretty easy to get a college loan. and i think that a lot of students are probably being misled, right? education is violately important. i did seven years of college and some people say it's down the

drain, but i'm still here. but here's the thing. colleges need to tell you what you're going to get for your money and if you have almost no chance of getting a job with a c average from a low level school and you got $40,000 in debt, that is a bad way to start your life. 30 years old with a car loan and no prospects. these colleges need to be honest with their students about what they're getting. and by the way, a lot of people won't like me saying this. if you look at college tuition rates over the years and look at when loans started going out willy-nilly like credit cards, you're going to see a correlation. i don't know what the solution is but they need to fix it because nobody wants to graduate with that kind of debt and no job. >> brian sullivan, seven years in college, six years as a sophomore. >> best six years of might have life. >> he he place a pro on tv. star of the show "necessary roughness" on the usa network,

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i got to find somebody who understands where i'm coming from, who understands my lifestyle. somebody like you, kojo. >> i just made it through my own 12 steps. i've never sponsored anybody before. >> and i've never been a sponsee. we can lose our sponsor virginity. think of the symbolism. the guy that made me want to play ball makes me want to stay clean. >> only you can want to stay clean. the sponsor's there when you get into it. >> my whole life's in jail. >> that was a scene from the

u.s. network's "necessary roughness." and joining us now, the star of the show, mehcad brooks. >> it's a huge pleasure. i'm a big fan of the show. >> can you believe that? he watches you, barnicle? >> what time? >> 4 a.m., sometimes. or if i wake up in time, 6, 7. >> is it the beginning of your day or end of your day. >> my parents are watching, watch out, bro. >> say hi. oh, look at that smile. so tell us first of all about the show because it involves you in a very violent temper? >> yeah. i play c.k. who has this $80 million and 27 years old and he's got no boundaries and he's just one of these wide receivers acting badly on, pick your team. >> never seen that. >> yeah, it's a reinvention of athletes. you've never seen that before, i'm sure. and sometimes the temper flies

off the handle and there's not a lot of people who can reel him in. >> who do you model yourself on? is there a pro athlete. a little bit of o.j.sinkle sprinkled in? >> the guy's based on kishon johnson in real life. i've springkled on a lot of people. >> is there any personal connection with the role? >> my biological father played professional football in the nfl. t.k. is an addict, and there's addiction in my family, so i've seen that up close and personal, which is, it's tough for me to play sometimes, but it's also -- i know how to portray it accurately. >> yeah. >> you know what's interesting about this show and i've seen it several times, is that the

character that you play plays in a field with boundaries. >> right. >> and you know when you're out of bounds. >> right, right. >> but in life, given your age and the cash that they have on hand. >> con fuscius says. >> that needs to be used on the show. >> i like that. there needs to be some hash marks in t.k.'s life. you're rieght, absolutely. i think a lot of athletes are on a pedestal, so they're not held to the same standard that we are. >> but explore, and i guess you are with this character, but we see this all the time in real life where these very young athletes are obviously tapped for their talent on the field, and just given the world materially. >> right. >> but given no guideposts. >> there's just no guidance, there's no direction, and nine times out of ten they come from a family that wasn't able to

provide, let's just say, the correct education or the correct amount of support. when you come into millions of dollars. >> right. and they think that that million dollar salary is in perpetuity like they're going to have it forever. they don't realize that once their career is over, that million goes to zero. you'd be amazed at how the lack of self consciousness there is about how long their life is and how short their career. >> yeah, and i would actually say it is a challenge that even if you're from a family of means that was able to provide the love and support and guidance of two parents, it's still, it's an impossible situation to go from zero to millions. >> i would imagine. >> the composite character that you play is unfortunately a real reflection of so many athletes, not just in football but in pro baseball where the money is enormous and guaranteed.

and now they are, as you know, many nfl teams and major league baseball teams, they have life coaches. >> yeah. i think a lot of people need life coaches, especially when you're traveling half the year, and you're keeping your body in a certain condition which keeps you on edge. just like when i'm training for the show which is five months a year, i'm fasting every seventh day, so i want to punch somebody in the face sometimes. >> thus the violent temper in his character. >> yeah. i don't want to settle that lawsuit. i'll keep my hands in the pockets. >> all right, the season finale of "necessary roughness" airs february 20th on usa. mehcad brooks. it's nice to meet you. say hi to your mom. >> i will. >> want to meet her. more "morning joe" when we come back. aw this is tragic man, investors just like you

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did you see the pictures of president obama playing golf with tiger woods this weekend? neither did we. the media covering the president was shut out. the press corp complained. >> folks, there are a lot of holes in this story, specifically 1 of them.

but i believe america deserves to know, who drove the cart, who rode shotgun. did the president mitt from the lady'sti, did he replace h plap >> let's look at the pros and cons of going on a carnival cruise. pro, checking out the men knew to see what you'll eat first. con, checking out the passengers to see who you'll seat first. pro, carnival used to be the number one cruise line in the world. con, now it's mostly number two. [ applause ] >> i get it.

>> the guy in the car didn't even say anything. i think what we're learning is recognitions in the course of their everyday lives see so much [ bleep ], they are unphasable. for instance, they are accustomed to the fact that your average recession car cab torn apart by your average russian woman. this roadside scene, yes, that is a hatchet. apparently in russia, it's very important for your morning compute to involve a hatchet dispute or a fighter jet fly by, or i don't know, tank! how unphased are russians? even their cows in a mass cow tipping just [ bleep ] get up

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